


Personal Notes (9) Things I can't remember

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [9]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Awkward Carlos, Awkward Cecil, Coffee, Creepy, Crush, M/M, neat!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos remembers calling Cecil but the voicemails don't match his recollection. And there's coffee, not a date, just coffee but will he mess it up?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (9) Things I can't remember

Phone calls

I finally did it. I called Cecil. I wanted to hear him talk to me, just to me, so I wrote some prompts on sticky notes, arranged them in order on my clipboard and called him late at night about the clocks and how time is different here, stretched somehow. I asked him to find out if any of his listeners have noticed a time shift. 

Cecil related the whole thing on his show. After what I suspect was another coded message disguised as a random list, I assigned decode-duty to Priya who used to be a military scientist and might know something about code breaking, Cecil talked about my call. The way he said my name and repeated it, a higher pitch and faster pace breaking through his radio voice, made me flutter and fluster all over again. 

I remember I said, "I need to talk to you, this is important" and he said, "okay." I told him about time slowing down. I quoted some figures to give him an idea of the magnitude of the time shift. He paused then said, "neat." Awkward silence. I was about to hang up when Cecil asked me if I wanted to meet up to talk more about it. This was so close to my fantasy that I panicked and blurted out "no". Later, when I had stopped pacing my apartment and calmed down, I decided to call him back to arrange to meet after all with the excuse that I needed some contact details. Just coffee. 

But on the radio I heard Cecil tell more. He said that I was forward, except he pronounced it "fo-ward". My eyebrows raised, it was just a phone call and less forward than stealing my phone and adding himself to my speed-dial contacts. The way he pronounced fo-ward made my heart thump so hard I wondered if he could feel it. He said he was drinking armagnac. That probably isn't important now but all knowledge is useful somehow. Cecil speculated on whether I meant that it feels like time slows down whenever we are together and said that he feels that way too, but couldn't say it. Is he telling me that I have the same devastating effect on him as he has on me? Would we stand a chance at being friends, or more? 

I thought about it as Cecil relayed advice about making his listeners more visible and audible to the Sheriff's Secret Police, which I took to mean quite the opposite. I worried again that he would get into trouble. How could he have difficulty talking to me when he spilled everything to his listeners with ease? I decided to call him back during his show with a bit more detail about the clocks I have studied and maybe, just maybe, ask him... what, exactly?

This was where the radio show got creepy. I remember making one call and leaving one voicemail about the strange contents of some of the clocks. But the voicemails Cecil played told another story. I listened to my own recorded voice, forgetting to breathe or blink.

The first voicemail I remember starting, but I don't remember my voice going to a whisper saying there was someone at my door.

A second voicemail I don't remember at all, describing a man in a jacket holding a leather suitcase, not knocking just standing in front of my door while I peered through the crack in the living room blinds. Who knows about that crack? I only broke the blind last week.

A third voicemail, apologising and saying I forgot what I was doing then asking to meet Cecil and reminding him to get the word out about the clocks. Why would I say that when Cecil had already talked about it on his show that I had just listened to, was still listening to? Was it some kind of elaborate fake, or is my memory wrong?

Cecil called our arrangement to meet a "date" and called me back during a break in his show to confirm time and location. I was still in shock about the voicemails but pulled my head together enough to write down a place and a time.

We met next afternoon as arranged. I was a few minutes late and Cecil was there already. He sat at a small square table with two identical mugs of identical coffee, strong drip filter, no milk or sugar. Exactly what I would have ordered for myself. I had imagined that Cecil would order something sweet, iced and frothy. He half stood and waved as I entered the dark room from the bright sunlight and blinked as my eyes adjusted. I sat in the chair opposite. I had thought about this. If I sat at the chair next to him then I wouldn't get so distracted by his eyes but there would be more risk of accidental touch and that might end badly with me becoming a babbling lunatic or simply getting up and running away. Opposite him, I risked getting lost, hypnotically staring and forgetting to talk at all, but I had my clipboard and could look at that if I couldn't handle it. There were prompts written on it, like "how are you" and "this is not a personal meeting" and "can I have a number for the mayor's direct line". I decided I should be careful about what I say. If he thought a phone call was forward then I had better not say anything that could be interpreted as anything other than courtesy or science. 

I started with a look at my clipboard, "Please don't mention this on your show."  
He pushed a coffee mug over to me and raised his head, "Okaaay?"  
Silence. Coffee. Sip. I consulted my clipboard again, "have you ever looked inside any clocks?"  
"No," he replied, "they just tell the time. It would be helpful if they all told the same time, but that's not usually important."  
"Not important?" I said, "How is it possible to make anything work if nobody knows what time it is?"  
And we talked about time, my clipboard notes ignored, until Cecil said, "I have to go to work now." He got up and left abruptly, half of his coffee undrunk. 

I was furious with myself. I had been late, rude, gone off on a point of science and probably lectured, bored or insulted him. Perhaps all three. I sat with my head in my hands and two half-coffees on the table until it was too late to go after Cecil and say sorry, come back. My heart was in my boots and I wanted to throw up. I went out into the relentless sunlight and trudged back to the lab. I cursed that I am so incapable of reading people, picking up on hints and clues as to what they are thinking. I shut myself in the lab office and worked on data spreadsheets until I could barely focus my eyes. I find numbers calm me down.

Thinking and overthinking, unable to sleep, unable to conjure up any kind of soothing fantasy, I decided to text Cecil and apologise. I got my phone out and found an unread text waiting for me. 

soz had 2 go, wd like 2 talk more C

I replied, elated, sent without thinking about it and immediately wished it was possible to unsend.

ok wd b neat


End file.
